Happy Easter!

(I posted a link to this last year, but it deserves to be revisited.)

Neat!

Okay, so it works. Have to see if I can get rid of the double-spacing, though.

Testes, Testes, 1, 2…3?

Hmm, apparently with Word 2007 you no longer need an add-in to blog directly from Word.

Let's see if this works.

Red Right Hand

Back when I was in high school, before I made whatever breakthrough it was that allowed me to draw women - something I had previously been unable to do - I spent a lot of time drawing things related to the music I listened to. This meant drawing a lot of heavy metal album covers, but it also meant, on occasion, drawing images inspired by the songs themselves.
Most of it wasn't especially good, but not much of what I did then was especially good anyway, so that's hardly suprising.
In the spirit of "Who's to say much has changed since then?" I submit to you this picture inspired by the Nick Cave song Red Right Hand.



Is it any good? I don't know, but at least it's something a little different from the usual portraiture/tutorial results, so you can't say that I don't change things up a little (even if I do so by going back to doing things that I used to do almost 20 years ago).

Scratch That

Maybe I don't have to worry about turning 35. I found this in the comments on a tutorial site:

WHEN U R READING THIS DONT STOP OR SOMETHING BAD WILL HAPPEN MY NAME IS SUMMER I AM 15 YEARS OLD i have BLONDE HAIR , SCARS no NOSE OR EARS I AM DEAD IF U DONT COPY THIS JUS LIKE FROM THE RING COPY N POST THIS ON 5 MORE SITES OR I WILL APPEAR ONE CREEPY NIGHT WEN UR NOT ExPECTING IT BY YOUR BED WITH A NIFE AND KILL U THIS IS NO JOKE SUMMET ING GOOD WILL HAPPEN TO U IF YOU POST THIS ON 5 MORE FLASH BOXES

As I will not be posting this on 5 (4 now that I've posted it here) sites, I can apparently look forward to being killed by a dead 15 year old, scarred, earless and noseless blonde wielding a "nife," whatever that is.
Still, it's on the creepy nights that I just might be expecting someone to appear by my bed and kill me, so I'd advise that Summer consider appearing on a non-creepy night if she wants to have the element of surprise.
I'd also like to let her know that using all caps (or at least mostly caps) is considered bad form, but then, so is killing people with this "nife" thing, so I suppose that poor netiquette is the least of her issues.
Oh, and if reading this and not subsequently posting it gets any of you killed, then I'll freely say, "My bad."

Follicle Follies

As I mentioned the other day, today would have been my dad’s 72nd birthday.
Though it’s hardly as if I would have really needed something to make me think about him – I think about him a lot – I couldn’t help but be reminded him as I went to the barbershop to get a hair cut. I could hear him say, “Why not get them all cut?”
Sure, sometimes – okay, maybe 99% of the time – his sense of humor was exactly that cheesy, but he could always make me laugh.
Ten years ago, when he was turning 62 my mom wanted to throw him a big party. The only problem was that his birthday was during the week, and a weekend would be much more suitable for the party, and more likely to get guests to show up. For a variety of reasons it was decided to have his birthday party ten days later, on a Sunday.
Of course, that particular Sunday was actually my birthday, so I got to turn 25 and spend the day watching someone else get presents and birthday greetings.
I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t a little bent out of shape by that, but I could deal with it because it was for my dad. I was willing to let him have my birthday.
I’d happily give him this one, too, if it meant that he were around to accept it.
(Especially if it meant that I wouldn’t have to turn 35.)
Okay, time to swallow the lump in my throat and get my eyes to stop burning and write about something that doesn’t make me choke up (and no, I’m not talking about turning 35).
I’d actually thought that it had only been a few weeks since I got a haircut, and I was surprised at how quickly, even for me, my hair had grown, but a quick search of Threshold showed that it had actually been over two months.
Once you get to a certain point it seems that time flies whether you’re having fun or not.
I was thinking about that when I watched TNMT last week, as there was a character who was 3,000 years old featured in the movie. What would time be like for him, I wonder? I mean, when I hit 30, time just started whizzing by, and I find myself frequently thinking, “Holy crap, that was five years ago already?” When you get to 3,000 it must be like, “Hey, wasn’t it just 1904 a minute ago?”
Anyway, for my haircut I went to the local barbershop that I went to over two months ago
The place appears to be owned or at least run by a Chinese couple, and it was the wife who cut my hair today while simultaneously keeping an eye on her young son.
Well, kind of keeping an eye on him, as his brother ended up having to go outside to collect him after he wandered off.
Periodically she would say something in Chinese (I’m going to guess Cantonese and not Mandarin, though I could very easily be wrong), though it was unclear who she was saying it to, as she said it so quietly that I could barely hear it and she was right behind me, so there’s no way that anyone else could have heard what she was saying.
After she finished cutting my hair she broke out a personal massager and started massaging my shoulders, neck, and head. It was unexpected and not entirely pleasant.
Then she lathered up the back of my neck and broke out the straight razor, which I was expecting, though I’ve never actually had the back of my neck shaved like that anywhere but here in VA, but I remembered it pretty distinctly from last time.
From there it was off to the grocery store, where I had to pick up only a few things, like milk. When I was getting my milk, I learned that that things were getting pretty hot back in the dairy cooler, as I heard one employee shout at another, “That isn’t the point, man!”
I’m not sure what the argument was about, as I didn’t stick around to eavesdrop, or rather, coolerdrop, but I did hear the person getting yelled at say something about being on a different schedule.
Before my haircut I went to Super Target to pick up some new socks and replacement brush heads for my toothbrush.
And that’s been my exciting day so far.

My Tutorials (Which Are Nothing Like The 80's Sex Comedy "My Tutor")

So I did some tutorials tonight. Here are the results.
A lot of the tutorials I do call for using photographs, but I figure I might as well use some of my drawings.
Anyway, here they are.

Oh Yeah

I forgot to mention about the little video clip widget I've added over on the lower right.
Basically it allows you to watch a selection of YouTube and Google Video clips without having to leave Threshold.
It's not set up to allow you to search for clips here, rather I enter in search terms and it randomly searches clips every time you load the page.
Currently I have it set to search for clips from The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, The Onion News Network (and two other "secret" searches that seemed only appropriate).
If you have some additional clips you would like to see, let me know.
Oh, and when you click on a video, it plays at the top of the page, so you'll have to scroll back up to watch it.

Far From The Madding Crowd

Yesterday I woke up late after having gone to bed relatively early, netting myself a little over 9 hours of sleep.
Of course, I had to pay for that, so by the time I went to bed last night I was completely incapable of getting to sleep and ended up being awake until nearly 3 am. Once I did get to sleep I woke up a bit after 6, then again a bit after 8, and again after 9.
Eventually I decided to stop fighting it and just get up, as I had to go to go to the dentist for my check up.
While I was sitting in the rather packed waiting room, there was a lady sitting to my left with two kids, one of whom – despite his mother’s repeated orders not to – kept getting up from his chair and walking over to me as though preparing to climb up on my lap. Not sure what was up with that, but I was relieved to be called back before suddenly finding myself with a strange child’s possibly soaking wet bottom suddenly parking itself on my lap.
This time around I had a different hygienist from the usual chatty Iranian lady, and somehow a different hygienist meant different results, as last time my gums were “beautiful,” and this time they were “terrible.”
I’m not sure what happened there, as in the course of the past six months I haven’t really been doing anything different from the prior six months that led up to the “beautiful” results.
Oh well.
After the dentist I stopped to have lunch at Wendy’s in Ashburn, across from where I used to live.
It seems that just as with the development I’m living in, the complex I lived in there that had converted from renting apartments to selling condos has gone back to renting. They’ve even put their old sign back up.
At Wendy’s I ordered a combo meal. When she asked me what I wanted to drink, I said, “Sprite,” to which she responded, “Coke? Okay.”
I was going to correct her, but, suppressing a yawn, I decided that I could use some caffeine.
Then she gave me the total, which seemed rather excessive, so it was with some trepidation that I gave her the money and got my change. Once she grabbed two cups to fill up, I realized that she’d thought I’d ordered two meals, which explained the overcharge, so I said, “I only ordered one.”
She looked at me confused, and I said, “I ordered one number two.”
After saying, “Ohhhhh,” she conferred with her manager and gave me the rest of my change, and soon I had my one meal and was sitting down to eat.
There were a couple of people in there with their very young children, and as I sat there trying to tune out all of the random screaming, I thought about how, at times like these, anyone could wonder why I try to avoid going out into the world.
Barking dog notwithstanding, life is just so much more quiet and peaceful in my little cave. Every time I venture out into the world, pretty much all of my senses are assaulted by something unpleasant, from crying babies and shitty muzak to fat smelly guys whose pants are falling down, and it just seems less and less worth it to go there.
With that in mind, I decided to head straight home after eating rather than doing any grocery shopping, as I have enough food to get by for a few days. Of course that, means having to venture out into the world again tomorrow or Wednesday, but I just really needed to get away from the noise.
I’m going to wait until I get my bags and boards to buy boxes for my comics and to make a decision about buying that database software, but I suppose I could at least finish the process of de-bagging them, so I guess I’ll spent the rest of the afternoon doing that.

Like We Aren't All Fools During The Other 11 Months

So today is April Fools Day, though I seldom think of it in those terms, as for one thing it’s my sister Kim’s birthday, and for another it sort of marks the start of a rush of birthdays in my family, including my own.
I did the math the other day and figured out that if I’m going to be 35, that means that Kim would be 40 today, and so I went out in search of an appropriate birthday card, one that’s subdued and respectful.
There. I got my whole “April Fools” thing out of the way with that description of the card (if you believed it for even a second).
I’m not really in much of an April Fools mood anyway, as the next birthday up on the calendar would have been my dad’s on Tuesday.
He would have been 72.
Up after that is mine, then my brother Brad’s two day’s later.
We used to have another one, as my late aunt’s birthday was right in between mine and Brad’s. Also, if I recall correctly, my ex-mother-in-law’s birthday is in April.
Kathleen’s is 11 days after mine, and I pointed out to her – as if she didn’t know – that we’ll be 35 this year. That got me a very loud and somehow disbelieving “I know!” in response.
My friend Eric also has a birthday in April, but I must confess that I’ve never been able to remember the exact date. I know, I’m terrible.
As you can see over on his blog, Scott and I went to see TMNT on Tuesday. What he wrote pretty much covers my thoughts on the subject, though I was never actually into the comics.
He did, however, neglect to mention the fact that when we walked into the theater we were hit by an odd barnyard-like smell, which I likened to that of a 4H fair, as it was a distinct odor of hay and livestock.
It disappeared once we took our seats, but on the way out it was there again. Not sure what was or had been going on in that particular theater.
Scott and I also stopped at the comic book store on the way home from work on Thursday night. I spent a much more reasonable $15 this time around, though apparently somewhere between picking it up and adding it to my stack and actually paying for them I failed to buy the copy of the (second printing) of Captain America that I’d grabbed, as after I got home it was not in the bag and not listed on the receipt.
Because the store’s upcoming move closer to me will make it too far out of the way for Scott to swing by after work, he’s most likely going to take advantage of their subscription service and authorize me to pick his books up for him.
I might also do the subscription thing just to ensure that I always get what I want and so that I won’t have to make weekly trips.
This morning I watched the movie This Film Is Not Yet Rated, which I’d recorded last night.
It’s a documentary about the film rating system that brought to light some interesting information and made me realize that the film ratings system is even more arbitrary and retarded than I’d thought.
Ultimately what it boils down to is that portrayals of violence are okay, though portrayals of bloodless violence are even better, sex is bad, and any kind of sex outside of male-female missionary position sex is really bad.
Even more retarded than the ratings process, though, is the appeals process once your move has been rated.
One example of retardation is that you are not allowed to cite precedent.
For example, you can’t say, “My movie has one shot in which you can see one woman’s pubic hair and it was rated NC-17, but in the movie Porky’s you could see several women’s pubic hair, and that was rated R.”
If you were to try to compare your movie to another movie, essentially you would be told to shut up.
(Apparently, no doubt thanks in part to fallout from the movie, you are now able to cite other movies in the appeals process.)
What I was most struck by in watching the documentary, though, were the amazing parallels between the MPAA in movies and the CCA (Comics Code Authority) in comics.
That they are similar and share a rather common origin isn’t exactly news, but I was surprised at just how close the parallels were.
Ultimately I’m not as opposed to a rating system as perhaps I once was or as some people are, but I do think that it needs to be much less arbitrary, much less reactionary, and the process has to be a lot more transparent than it has been, and the system certainly shouldn’t be used to penalize filmmakers who refuse to toe the line.
Anyway, that was the excitement for today.
Tomorrow I have a dentist appointment, and no further plans for the week beyond that.
In any case, I hope all of you April Fools out there are having a good day.

Picture Post

I thought I should finally get around to posting some pictures that I've been meaning to put up here.
First up are before and after shots of my rececent slipcovering of my couch:


Pre-Op



Post-Op

Below we see the stacks that my comics taking up space in my living room.
They're going to be like this for a while longer, as the bags and boards I ordered last week are apparently on 2-3 week backorder. Would have been nice if they'd known that the day I was ordering them.
(I'm sure they did know; they just waited 3 days to tell me.)


If you're trying to make out the name on that comic that's fourth from the right, your eyes are not deceving you if you're seeing Atari Force. That really is the name of it, and for the record, I really enjoyed Atari Force back in the day. It was solidly scripted by Gerry Conway (Who has since ventured out from the world of comics to the world of TV. I see his name a lot as a producer on the Law & Order shows.) and beautiful art by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, who ranks up there as one of my favorite artists in large part due to his work on Atari Force.
And for the record, the stories in the book had little or no connection to any Atari games.
At that time, if I recall correctly, Atari and DC were both owned by Warner Communications, and a product that converged comics and video games was pretty much a no-brainer. Some of the initial books in the Atari line had more to do with the games, but Atari Force pretty much took the name and that was it.
AF also featured one of my all-time favorite characters, the multi-racial, heavily tattooed, semi-clairvoyant mercenary who callled herself Dart.
Dart was an aggressive, sexually forthright woman who knew what she wanted and wasn't afraid to take it, and she made quite an impression on young Jon. She was the first "freaky chick" I was ever into.
It was Dart's - to borrow Stephen Colbert's term for TV anchor Soledad O'brien - pan-racial background that went a long way toward's making her so interesting. Her father was from India, while her mother was an Asian-Irish mix who, while looking Asian, spoke with a thick Irish brogue.
(FYI, Dart's mom was a MILF)
Of course, this was the early 80s, and comics didn't really have a way to visually denote that someone was from an ethnic background that fell outside of the standard ethnic skin tones brown, red, and yellow, so Dart got the neutral gray coloring that was meant to denote that she wasn't black, oriental, or an American indian (to use the vernacular of the day).
I may have to actually do a picture of Dart someday.
In any case, here are the rest of the comics:

America's Finest News Source

Check out this clip from the Onion News Network discussing the state of the troops in Iraq. I've been enjoying The Onion Online for a long time and am very glad to be able to witness the birth of this new network...even if it's been around since 1892.


Go here to check out more clips (and be sure to check out the scrolling headlines on the clips. My favorite? "Recently captured jewel thief says he regrets sending riddles to police.")

What Does Early To Bed And Late To Rise Make You?

Yesterday, for reasons that are beyond me, I slept until after 10. I woke up surprised at the lateness of the hour, considering that I’d gone to bed around midnight, and by the fact that my mother hadn’t called yet.
(The latter was resolved within about five minutes when my mother called and said that she’d been waiting for me to call.)
Still not sure why I slept so late, though it’s hardly as if it matters, considering that I, once again, totally wasted the day.
I did watch the Night of the Comet DVD, though, and found that my recollection wasn’t too colored by nostalgia and that it was as entertaining as I remembered it to be (and Catherine Mary Stewart was just as hot).
I actually specifically recall going to see the movie at the theater. It would have been early 1985, and I went to see it with Greg Leppanen. I would have been in 7th grade and Greg in 8th.
This was the period that had followed two solid years of pretty much non-stop abuse from everyone I knew at which we had reached a sort of détente in which I generally avoided everyone and in exchange they didn’t call me names or throw stuff at me and on occasion I engaged in some semi-friendly activities with some of them, though I was always mentally prepared to retreat and had learned not to share too many of my thoughts with them for fear of having them used against me. Nowadays my defense mechanisms consist mostly of just not giving a shit what anyone thinks or says, though there are still some things that I actually hold back (Believe it or not.).
In any case, I recall that the goodness didn’t stop after seeing the movie, as a storm came in that night and school was cancelled the next day.
Today has been about as eventful as yesterday, though I did wake up earlier (despite going to bed later).
Once I got up I did the requisite amount of sitting around, then went to Super Target to pick up a few groceries and one of those automatic shower cleaner dealies, as they now come with a shower caddy (the lack of which was the main reason I had not previously purchased one).
Add in cooking a pork loin for dinner and having Absolute Watchmen arrive in the mail – the thing is HUGE – and you’ve got pretty much my whole day neatly summarized.

Lesson Learned

Every so often I make use of the global search feature on Easy News to do a search of all available newsgroups for images of the various celebrities I like to use as models, like Jessica Simpson, or Scarlett Johansson, or Carla Gugino.
On occassion, I find that some of the best results in terms of quality (size and resolution) often come from an unlikely source, a group called alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.barefoot.
I guess that most of the pictures I find posted in that particular group end up there based on the strength of the fact that the celebrities are wearing open-toed shoes, though my interest is usually in the poses or the outfits (for example, I found some pictures of Ms. Gugino in a skin-tight, semi-transparent dress today).
Figuring that there must be more pictures like that of other celebrities who might not immediately spring to mind for a search, I decided I should just check out the actual group to see what else was there.
After noting that there were many, many, MANY posts with subject lines like "spunk on my toes," though, I decided that it's probably best that I stick to the targeted searches and not bother visiting again.

Where No Knight Of The Round Table Has Gone Before

From Tail Wagging To Tail Drooping With Special Bonus Comic Book Innuendo!

At some point yesterday afternoon at work I’d headed over to the vending machine to grab a snack, and when I got back to the desk I said to Scott, “Well, that was disappointing."
When he asked what I was talking about I said, “When I was at the machine I heard someone coming, so I looked over to the door thinking that it might be the pretty girl who smiles at me that I sometimes see over on that side of the building, but it really wasn’t.”
Not only was the person who appeared at the door not the pretty girl who smiles at me that I sometimes see – I have no idea who she is or what her job is, or even if she’s still there as it’s been a long time since I last saw her – she was not pretty at all and I don’t think I would have wanted her to smile at me.
That it wasn’t her was made all the more disappointing by how much I was hoping and anticipating that it would be the pretty girl who smiles at me that I sometimes see.
Scott said, “If you were a dog, your tail would have been wagging right up until the point that you saw that it wasn’t her.”
That’s a pretty accurate assessment.
Figuring (correctly) on yesterday being a more typically slow Saturday then the last one, I brought all of the comics I’d bought in to read at work. Several hours later, after having read the last of them, I said, “Well that was $86 well spent.”
Despite the sarcasm, I did really enjoy them, and I’m glad(ish) that I’ve gotten back into the comic buying swing of things, but it was a lot of money, as was the money spent on bags and boards (to say nothing of the time bagging and boarding is going to take, or the remaining money to be spent on the comic book database software and new boxes).
I don’t recall how we got on the topic, but at some point later in the day Scott made some sort of comment about how my unwillingness to cull from the “pay for play” stock of women is what’s preventing me from having any sort of companionship.
I said, “Are you kidding? I’ve got buyer’s remorse about spending $86 on comics, and I’ve liked those since long before I was interested in girls, so there’s no chance of me paying for a woman. Plus, I actually get to keep the comics after I pay for them.”
Speaking of comics, I’ve been going through some of the old ones piled up on floor waiting to be re-archived.
One such book from the early 80s was a digest reprinting several old “Imaginary Stories” featuring Superman.
Imaginary Stories were stories that didn’t actually fit into continuity, but were written to give fans the opportunity to see how things might go if X were to happen.
Some of the most common Imaginary Stories appeared in Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane and focused on – what else? – what might happen if Superman and Lois were to get married. This could only be done in Imaginary Stories, after all, as no one could even consider that they might actually get married “for real.”
(Ten years after it happened “for real,” there are still some people who bitch about Clark and Lois being married and who would like to see a return to the old status quo. I call those people “idiots.”)
In any case, there was one story – and one particular panel – that stood out for me in collection of stories.
This particular story posited a world in which things started off normal: Krypton exploding, last survivor rocketed to Earth, found by kindly farming couple, raised as Clark Kent.
However, on the trip to Earth the child was exposed to Gold Kryptonite (a form of Kryptonite that causes Kryptonians to permanently lose their powers) and grows up as a normal Mid-Western teen.
Because Clark has no powers he never becomes Superboy and never causes the accident that makes boy genius Lex Luthor go bald and turn evil.
Clark and Lex becomes the best of friends and Lex develops a formula that gives him powers that, coincidentally enough, are exactly the same as the powers a Kryptonian would have on Earth.
Lex makes himself a fanciful costume and takes on the identity of Superboy.
Meanwhile the Kents – who have never revealed to Clark that they found him in a rocket that crashed in a field – sell their farm and open a general store in Smallville, where on one fateful night a robber shoots them both dead.
As Jonathan Kent lies dying in the hospital he starts to tell Clark about the rocket, but dies before getting the chance. Swearing vengeance, Clark notices a bat in the window and takes it as a sign.
Leaving Smallville, he begins to train his mind and body for a mission of vengeance on the criminal world. After inheriting a vast fortune from a wealthy uncle, Clark creates a base of operations that he calls – wait for it – the Batcave, and begins his mission as the caped crusader Batman.
In due course, the now-grown Superboy takes on the name Superman, and he and Batman become the World’s Finest super-team, and, after revealing their secret identities to each other, rekindle their childhood friendship.
Though Lex – who gives up science to become a reporter for the Daily Planet, because, you know, why not – secretly pines for spunky reporter Lois Lane, she only has eyes for hunky millionaire playboy Clark Kent.
Eventually Clark and Lois are wed, and on the first night of their honeymoon Clark reveals to his bride that he is, in fact, the Dark Knight himself.
It’s the next panel that just kills me, though:



I just love the whole “Oh, no” from Lois, because you know she has to be wondering just what kind of kinkiness she’s gotten herself into. I mean, first her husband strips off his tux to reveal that he’s wearing tights underneath, and then his best friend shows up in their honeymoon suite and starts undressing.
“That’s right Lois. Lex and I are even closer than you thought. And we share everything.”
And on that note, I’ll leave you with this link to the Top 15 Unintentionally Funny Comic Book Panels.
(And as the comments on the site point out endlessly, superdickery did it first.)

Wow

Two weeks ago Cartoon Network annoyed the (ahem) hell out of me by airing the second Hellboy Animated movie, Blood and Iron, without having advertised it sufficiently to let me (or Scott) know that it was going to be on.
I only inadvertently discovered it while flipping through the channels and finding it already well underway.
A quick search of the Media Center guide showed that there were to be no future airings within the next couple of weeks.
Fortunately, thanks to the wonders of Usenet, I didn't have to wait for the DVD release in May, and I just managed to watch a copy I downloaded.
Wow.
I was duly impressed by the first movie, Sword of Storms, thanks in no small part to the involvement of Hellboy creator, the supremely talented Mike Mignola, and the director of 2004's live-action Hellboy movie, Guillermo Del Toro, and to the fact that many of the live-action movie's cast members reprised their roles to provide voice for the characters.
Sword of Storms was a fun, action-packed romp, that brought several classic scenes from the comic to (animated) life.
It was great stuff.
Blood and Iron, however, while retaining the action and the appropriate sense of humor, really ratcheted up the intensity and the horror, delivering a movie that was genuinely creepy and disturbing (but still fun). I'll admit it: I had to turn the lights on while I was watching it.
So yeah. Hellboy Animated: Blood and Iron. Check it out when it comes out on DVD.
And people behind Hellboy Animated? Keep the movies coming. They're just what I need to tide me over until we finally get the live-action sequel in 2008.

Here You Go

For all of you obsessive weirdoes seekers of cup size wisdom, you can find a list of celebrity bra sizes that looks to have been compiled - or at least updated - sometime after 1994, and is not just a recycled list pulled off of Usenet or some old BBS, here.
It does not list some of the more contemporary celebrities like Jessica Alba or Jessica Biel, and certainly doesn't list Giada, and who knows how or where the information came from or how accurate it is, but you're the pervert inquisitive fan who wants to know, so I'll leave it up to you to judge for yourself.
So there you go.

Another $100 Pissed Away...

I just ordered 1,000 comic book bags and 1,000 backer boards for a grand total of $94.15.
Still need to buy new boxes, and I'm not even sure that 1,000 bags and boards will be enough.
*Sigh*

Crazy Money-Spending Fool

I got a call this morning telling me that my taxes were ready to be sent out and that I had to stop in to pay for them and sign some stuff, so I sat around for a bit, showered, dressed, drove over to H&R Block, paid for them ($161…yikes. Good thing I’m getting a lot of money in my refund.), then headed off to Wal-Mart.
While there I randomly saw the DVD for one of my all-time favorite movies, Night of the Comet, for like $10, so I grabbed it.
For those unfamiliar, Comet tells the story of the night the greater part of humanity is whipped out by some substance contained inside the tail of a passing comet. There are a few survivors who came through unscathed, while some others have turned into flesh-eating zombies.
It’s a low-budget, totally 80s cheesefest, but that’s pretty much its charm. It doesn’t take itself too seriously and honestly has some great gags.
(FYI, I just noticed in its IMDb entry that it will be airing on The Movie Channel tomorrow morning at 7:30)
Back when the movie came out I was completely in love with its star, Canadian actress Catherine Mary Stewart.
My love for her, which started with her role in The Last Starfighter – another one of those favorite movies that I ought to own but don’t – has led me to sit through a lot of painfully bad movies just because she was in them, but Comet is not one of those. Not only is CMS hot, the movie is actually enjoyable, so bonus.
Speaking of movies I love but don’t own, while I was there I saw The Princess Bride on DVD for $7.50, so I picked that one up as well, and now it no longer falls into the love but don’t own category.
(Along with the aforementioned Last Starfighter, that category pretty much consists of The Crow – which I once owned – though maybe I should consider adding some of those “powerless to do anything but watch” movies I’ve mentioned, like Strange Days or Real Genius.)
From Wal-Mart I went on to Best Buy, where I was going to pick up Season 1 of Justice League Unlimited. I grabbed it, but then realized that I’d grabbed Season 1 of Justice League, which is different, and which I’ve been reluctant to buy because I thought that buying Justice League would be a big, multi-season purchase, as opposed to JLU, which was just two seasons. In any case, they didn’t have Season 1 of JLU, so I took my leave and headed to the comic books store in Herndon.
Where I dropped $86.
On comic books.
And that’s just comic books. No boxes or bags. No hardcover collections or trades. Just a stack of regular comics.
In fact, it was only 25 comic books.
I remember the first time I ever went to a comic book store, probably like 21 years ago. I spent $20 and bought way more comics than I did today, plus a couple of posters.
For the record, that first trip to a comic book store was a magical experience for young Jon. I mean, I knew that such places existed, but for me they were still sort of semi-mythical, places that only existed in stories.
Atlantis. Avalon. Hy-Brasil. Stores that just sell comic books.
It’s been a long time since I was last in a proper comic book store (or sine I viewed them as being magical places). One thing that struck me as I walked into this one today was the smell. I’d forgotten about the smell.
No, I’m not talking about the sweaty goatlike smell of the overweight and virginal staff and customers, I’m talking about the smell of comics.
For me, it’s a familiar, comforting smell, like the smell of a new car, or the inside of a leather store (I frequently go into Wilsons at the Dulles Town Center to just breathe in the smell of leather, then get out before I become too tempted to spend a lot of money on jackets and coats that I don’t need.).
In a month the store will actually be moving closer to Leesburg, which is excellent timing considering that it coincides with my plans to get back into regular comic book purchasing.
(Sucks for Scott, though. Still, that’s what you get for living in Manassas.)
For any of you wondering what I bought, here’s the list:

The Authority 1-2
Birds of Prey 102-104
The Brave & The Bold 1 -2
Daredevil 92-94
JSA 1-4
The Eternals 1-7
Welcome to Tranquility 1-4

There are some books that I plan to get caught up on by picking up the trades and then I might start buying the monthly books. Books like Fables.
I might also pick my Superman habit back up, but I haven’t been terribly impressed by anything I’ve seen there. I might buy the trade of Grant Morrison’s All-Star Superman, and then start picking up the regular books as they come out. We’ll see.
Not looking to add much from Marvel. I really can’t see myself getting back into buying X-Men, even with Ed Brubaker writing.
(Note that there were two Gail Simone titles in what I picked up today: Birds of Prey and Welcome to Tranquility. )
After that bit of splurging I stopped at the Best Buy in Leesburg on my way home to see if they had Season one of JLU. They did, and were selling Season 1 and 2 of JL for the same price, so I just said, “Screw it,” and bought those, too.
(Turns out there were only two seasons of JL, so I have the complete JL and JLU now.)
All told, not counting what I paid for getting my taxes done, I dropped around $200 today.
(Of course, that includes non-comics or DVD-related stuff like toilet paper and various other sundries.)
Anyway, that was my big day of spending money. There’s not likely to be a repeat of it anytime soon, as the refund is going straight into my savings account.
That’s too funny; just as I wrote that I got an e-mail from my bank telling me that I should put my refund into my savings account.
In any case, I’ve got some comic reading and DVD watching to do before getting ready for my workweek.